Vogue
April 1966
Photos by Richard Avedon
Barbra Streisand: The Girl Who Catches the Light
Barbra Streisand wears Saint Laurent and Lanvin
Now she has it all. All. The funny girl who became a swan has become a style. She's put svelte and some sulk and a lot of shattering complexity into her version of young fashion individualism. And she has scared the wits out of the more rigid fashion "individualists" as she's made her way .... She excites, she subdues. She projects light in a way no otehr star does: she absorbs it, conserves t, cools it. (Why not? It's hers.) ... The timing for her style had to be right. (It was.) The talent had to be there. (It is.) And Barbra Streisand, the romantic, whose need to be a pretty woman made her a fascinating-looking woman, has stimulated a whole new taste in beauty. (It's the need —and you can't miss it—that raches out and takes the heart.) ... The starry hands, the splendid skin, the shifting smile, the proud nose—they're all a part of the irresistible force that powers her style. But there's more to it. There's detachment (now). There's a shining sureness (now). There's real concern for freshness and gleam and polish .... What might come of her style for the several generations that will study it and puzzle its qualities? Possibly this: a more searching, less automatic standard re the realms of elegance. Funny thing for a funny girl to set in motion.
(above): For the pretty-young-woman school of dressing, the news worn here. Golden cubes—rings and earrings—by Antonio for Napier. Soft golden shirt for spring. (Of a newly buoyant vinyl, pliable as butter, this is by Cuddlecoat of Comark vinyl; has a skirt to match.) Lipstick, Revlon's Mocha Mauve from the new Frostlings series. Jewellry, shirt, skirt: at Bonwit Teller.
Lavin's ravishing flower float (above): Barbra, a Turkish crescent of hair, and bright yellow blossoms on night-blue organza drifted over a yellow slip. Bianchini silk. Coiffures: Alexandre.
Barbra Streisand blooms, this page, in Saint Laurent's delicious folie for a fantasy bride—an enormous whitee organdie handkerchief wrapped like a cornucopia, filled with armfuls of white flowers: lilacs, lilies, daisies, jasmine. Organdie by Brivet.
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